Encounter
by Nightwind
Summary: In the middle of a battle, Thundercracker makes a realization: There's one Autobot he can't kill. Despite my usual proclivities, this is not slash. I promise.


A splash of sunlight sparkled on one of his quarry's delicately pointed silver wingtips, momentarily distracting Thundercracker. His quarry took full advantage of this brief reprieve, dipping a wing deeply, precipitously altering his trajectory with an excessively sharp yet still graceful bank, and then, pulling in his wings, immediately rolling and slamming into a sharp downward evasive spiral that Thundercracker could not hope to match as quickly, his form being unfortunately more rigid and less maneuverable than his smaller quarry's organically inspired one. Nevertheless, he banked as sharply and as quickly as his bulkier fighter jet form allowed and then followed his quarry down, down into the pillow of fluffy cumulus clouds floating thousands of feet below.

The cloud layer swallowed Thundercracker whole, and his world shifted from bright, crystal-clear high atmosphere to wan, filtered light and pervasive grey mist in an instant. The sensation was momentarily disorienting, but he quickly regained his bearings while at the same time locating his quarry. Swoop was out of weapons range for the moment, but one of the few advantages that Thundercracker had over the Dinobot was that he was the faster of the two of them. This was not an advantage at close range, when steadiness and pinpoint accuracy were needed. Indeed, excessive speed was something of a disadvantage then. But it did mean that, once he'd locked on to him, Thundercracker could catch up to Swoop faster than Swoop could run to escape him. Thundercracker banked sharply to the southwest, in pursuit of the fleeing Dinobot. It would be but a matter of a few seconds before he would be in weapons range again.

Thundercracker had always been instinctively contemptuous of creatures that could not fly. He was not entirely certain why this was so; it was simply a part of who he was, had been for as long as he'd existed. It was ingrained, and he had long ago accepted it for what it was. One of the characteristic hallmarks of the Autobots was that they did not fly, seemed quite content to stay on solid ground where they no doubt felt safer and less exposed. So it had always been easy for Thundercracker to look down upon them as lesser beings and, as a corollary, to see himself as a vastly superior one. It had always been easy to detest the Autobots and, indeed, to attempt to destroy them wholesale when the need arose or when the command went out to do so. Because they were _less_ than he was. Because they were obliged to obey the constraints of gravity, and he was not. All political ideology aside, that made Thundercracker at least in his own mind more worthy of existence, more justified in continuing to take up space in the universe, than any Autobots was.

But this particular Autobot, the Dinobot, could fly. Thundercracker was forced to admit that he could now fly very well, even impressively well on occasion. He'd been known to pull off some truly spectacular maneuvers that, due to the aerodynamic differences in their aerial forms, the Seekers were unable to match or, on more than a few occasions, to counter.

This was extremely unsettling, as far as Thundercracker was concerned. It wasn't so much that he feared the Dinobot's growing prowess; rather, the Dinobot's growing prowess was forcing Thundercracker to rethink the notion of his own superior place in the universe.

Rethinking his preconceived notions was familiar territory to Thundercracker. He was often plagued by doubts, often second-guessing himself and the actions that he chose to undertake almost as a matter of course. But the one constant in his life, the one thing upon which he'd always been able to rely, the one thing that he hadn't ever previously had cause to doubt at all, was that the Autobots would remain safely inferior to him, at least according to his own peculiar personal definition of the word. He relied on the fact that, even if the Autobots managed to produce some flyers some day, they would never be as proficient at the art as were his own kind. So, even when Swoop had suddenly, as if from out of nowhere, appeared on the scene, Thundercracker had still managed to maintain some sense of equilibrium: Although Swoop could fly, he could not, as expected, fly _well_. At least, not at first. And therein lay the problem.

Swoop had learned quickly and well in the excessively short time that he had existed. He had learned to take full advantage of his relatively small size and his greater aerial maneuverability when grappling with the Decepticon jets, and he had as a result caused them much damage of late. In doing so, though, he had only managed to become, at least to Thundercracker, a challenging opponent. A _worthy_ opponent, even. He was an opponent that, now, Thundercracker found himself not quite so eager to destroy. He had difficulty destroying that which he respected, and he had somehow developed a grudging but very real respect for the Dinobot flyer. He could no longer consider Swoop inferior to himself, and so his excuse for destroying the Dinobot simply on principle was therefore gone, as if it had never been. In its wake, it left Thundercracker quite conflicted.

So now, Thundercracker took up position again behind and slightly above the wildly and randomly zigzagging Swoop, who was doing his level best to evade the Seeker. But even when Thundercracker's weapons systems automatically locked on to Swoop and then informed him that he could fire whenever he wished to do so and be relatively assured of a successful, satisfactory result, Thundercracker chose not to fire. Instead, he simply paced his quarry, watching him, absently noting the evasive pattern that Swoop was using for possible future reference.

Eventually, Swoop seemed to realize that something was wrong, that his pursuer, who because of the cloud cover was now well-concealed from his brethren who might not look kindly upon his sudden leniency, seemed content merely to pursue rather that to follow up pursuit with destruction. Intensely curious by nature and now suddenly uncertain to boot, Swoop slowed, eventually to the point that he was merely hovering. Long, graceful, and flexible silver wings beat every now and then, just often enough and just powerfully enough to produce just enough lift to perfectly maintain his position in the air.

It was a maneuver that his opponent could not emulate. Fighter jets did not, as a general rule, hover. Thundercracker was instead forced to circle Swoop, and circle he did, all warily, entirely aware that Swoop's watchful sensors were upon him every bit as much as his own were upon the Dinobot and that the Dinobot's impressive arsenal of weaponry was fully powered and no doubt raring to fire, just as his own weapons were. If Swoop fired, Thundercracker would naturally fully retaliate in kind, but he found that he was in no hurry at all to let loose the first shot, insistently bleating targeting scanners be damned. Swoop seemed content to wait for whatever the Decepticon decided to do.

They held their relative positions for what seemed a long moment. Thundercracker held to his tight circular course with Swoop sitting at its center; Swoop held his ground, watching and waiting tensely, not knowing at all what to expect. Eventually, surprisingly, Thundercracker's rough voice sounded, projected across that distance that separated them.

"I don't know what to do with you, Dinobot," the Seeker announced without preamble, his voice neither hostile nor friendly.

Swoop prudently chose not to answer.

"You are an Autobot," Thundercracker continued conversationally, "yet I find that I cannot destroy you."

Swoop remained silent and motionless but for the occasional beat of his wings to keep himself aloft. Thundercracker didn't seem to be looking for a response, so he thought it best to keep his thoughts to himself and his mouth firmly shut.

"I suppose," Thundercracker was musing, meanwhile, "that in the future I'll just have to leave you to Starscream. Unlike me, he has no respect for anyone. Certainly not for a Dinobot. No matter how well you have learned to fly."

Swoop frowned inwardly at that, considering the implications of the Decepticon's words. And then he gasped aloud in surprise when Thundercracker, without further ado, suddenly broke his circular course, pulled up, and climbed at a precipitous angle that no human pilot could have managed without blacking out in seconds. He quickly exited the cloud layer, disappearing from Swoop's sight. The Seeker left in his wake one very confused Dinobot, who hovered in place for long moments after the Decepticon had departed, wondering what in the world to make of this surprising encounter…


End file.
